CHAPTER 22: [WORK]

"Encerid Mair. Would you believe me if I were to say that I was a player once and now I am trapped in the game?"

His eyes were shocked a little, widening he then paused before narrowing them at me.

"Should developers have access to the private data of the players?" he asked, reaching his own conclusion.

"Aren’t you going to amuse even the idea of it?" I asked, fully expecting this response. It was the most obvious conclusion to reach up to.

"No. Data leaking isn’t an issue that I can simply laugh it off," his eyes turned serious as he was ready to go into complaint and report mode. I could only sigh before standing up and speaking,

"All right. Come with me for a walk."

He didn’t seem like he was in the mood to, so I clicked my fingers lightly increasing the temperature of the surrounding air. After getting a better control of the mana, something like this was pretty neat and easy.

Even though he was reluctant, he stood up. Taking his things with him, he followed me out of the Namas Cafe, and we began touring this short and long walk that was about to end in 2 hours and 12 minutes precisely.

As we passed by the Aegis Weapon Shop, a local church and a lingerie shop, I paused for a few seconds before saying,

"What are your ambitions, Encerid?"

"TruthSeeker. Please, call me TruthSeeker," he said with a stern look to which, I nodded before asking again,

"What are your ambitions, TruthSeeker?"

"Why should I tell you?" He answered.

"..."

Though before I could say anything, he simply sighed before continuing,

"I want to travel throughout Zarraf. The lores are fascinating, the backstory is great and there are always a bunch of things here and there to do. You can get immersed in it for hours without getting bored. And the best thing? It’s the fact that if I sell all that information online or to guilds, I could earn some big bucks without worrying about time wasted."

"In a way, I could earn while doing something that I love," he said as a blissful smile appeared on his face. He looked at me and then sighed before adding,

"But this whole situation is about the players being caught and then ending up in a coma. I don’t think I could really enjoy any of it anymore."

"Maybe. But that’s the whole reason I am here. To fix this situation," I said with a slight exhaustive smile on my face. I was more desperate to find out the solution than Encerid was, much more than Encerid was.

"All right. Mr, ’I am trapped in the game.’ What do you think we should do here? Or what were your plans in fixing this issue?" He asked with a serious look. This time he was much more serious than when I called him out by his real name.

"The first case, and even the majority of it, happened in this city. According to the reports, every player that had entered here has vanished without leaving a trace before appearing in that strange lab. So, our first clue is this city itself. We have to find out what’s wrong with it," I added, to which Encerid nodded.

"I reached the same conclusion. I was actually thinking about talking to the NPCs near the Cathedral, the Main Castle and lastly near the black-market area, if this city had any. If that didn’t work, I would check out the nearest shops where the players would have frequent visits, including the guilds and the blacksmiths. Hmmm, do you think that would work?" He asked, to which I nodded.

He is good. At least he knows where to start looking. I thought as I was genuinely impressed by him. He had a plan and was prepared to work on it.

"So. Where do you think we should start with? The cathedral?" He asked me, to which I nodded.

Our steps took the nearest Cathedral where I asked a bunch of questions before moving to the next stop, that is the shoe factory. It was a small factory that worked on magic, and Encerid was enthralled as he checked all the things that this place had. Writing down the ideas into his notebook, he then moved towards the owners of the NPCs and asked the other questions he had to.

Precisely 2 hours and 7 minutes later, 5 minutes before the end, I paused the investigation before bringing Encerid to the side.

"Encerid. What I am about to tell you might scare you a bit," I said with all the seriousness I could muster. His eyes, previously relaxed, now turned tense a bit as he looked at me.

"I need you to listen to everything from the start to the end, and then act based on it," I said before taking a deep breath and speaking,

"I am from the real world. I am not an NPC, but I have somehow become one. Additionally, I also have a time-regression ability that allows me to get back in time that I have saved before."

"This is our first meeting, but it’s also my 14th visit to this city. Each and every time, you vanish without leaving any trace behind. Then, you appear in that lab with that psychopath Doctor who begins his experiments on you. You start your stream as usual, and cry and beg that psychopath for hours and days before everything ends with the developers nuking all the suspected places at once."

"In your cries, you also take your real name, your address and your family name, asking the other players to pass on the message on how you loved them, and how you were sorry for not listening to their advice. You also told about your action figures and how you have kept some saved up money in it for the college. I learnt all of this information from the streams in your past turns."

I saw him getting angry at first, but then scared as his eyes flickered. He moved towards his system, most probably going to log out but...

"It’s not... here..." he spoke with a shock on his face as he looked at me, to which I shook my head and added,

"The moment you logged in today, it vanished. Anyone who had logged in within 20 kilometers of this city’s perimeters, has lost their function to log-out."

I expected him to either crash out, cry or shout right. I mean, it was the normal reaction to the whole thing.

What I did indeed hope was that at least when he was getting tortured, he would give me some crucial information that would allow me to connect with him in the future, so that he would trust me a bit more than before. So that he would look at me with more hope, and would work with me better.

It’s probably going to take a few turns. I sighed fully prepared for it.

"R-Man," though he spoke with a serious look on his face.

"Say that name to me when you meet again on the next return. You will have my utmost turn and belief then," he said as he then vanished in front of my eyes, without leaving any trace.

I stood there blankly for a few seconds.

I wanted to know what it meant, but I had a more pressing issue right now.

-BOOOOM!!!!!!!

"Son of Bitches," I looked at the 7 of them, standing in front of me. Their eyes filled with question and curiosity.

They were the Primordials.

Every time, every return, except at the time within that Space in that Space Goddess’s area, whenever I said even a hint on my ability to return in time, they appeared. They wanted to know about this ability of mine that I shouldn’t have.

This ability that even they didn’t have, they wanted to understand how come I ended up receiving it.

"Adam. You always amaze me," the Drunkard Primordial spoke, his eyes glistening as if he was looking at a treasure. The Enchantress observed me with a keen look, while the Mentalist had an extremely serious expression on his face.

The surroundings melted as everything started to defragment. The world was not strong enough to handle the energy of a single primordial, let alone the 7 of them that were standing in front of me.

It was an amazing sight.

Though...

"Sorry, guys. I know you are all very excited but, I don’t think I can spare much time for you. Can you please come again later, like in a million years or something?" I joked as I used my eyes to open the system, reach the last save point. And before they could realise something was wrong.

[Are you sure you want to load a previous Save Point?]

Bet my life on it.

[Loading Save Point!]

[Loading complete!]

And then, the world defragmented, and then fragmented again within a few milliseconds, as I once again found myself sitting in my shop’s store room, before turning to look at Linc working outside as usual.

"All right. R-Man, huh? Interesting," I thought with a slight smile on my face.